Median house prices and incomes revisited

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

A couple of weeks ago I posted some stats about median household incomes, median home values and car prices, etc. and asked for explanations of what seemed like discrepancies. But looking at statistics more closely I see a better explanation than was offered (either that median households go into massive debt to afford median houses, or that $42K annual income is sufficient to pay for a median priced house and car.)

The median house price stated this morning on NPR is actually $181K, well over what I had remembered. (Hence my two homes combined are actually worth a third, not half, the average house price.) But the median *household* income is based on all households including a large and growing number of one person households-- mostly renters I presume. Median *4-member family* income for 2001 is $63,278, enough to buy one of those median houses and a median priced car. Only 68% of housing units are owner occupied, so about a third of the population rents and presumably homeowners' incomes are considerably higher on average than renters'.

This helped puts things into perspective.

CYD

[zoidberg]

1. You are probably right

The median income of home owners is surely higher than the median income of all workers.

[cprise]

2. Isn't this in the wrong forum?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=114